Volunteering opportunities and resources are categorized according to whether volunteers are serving the community or the university.
For the Community
Maine bicentennial conference displays and workshops 05-31-19
UMaine Center on Aging, RSVP
Description
We offer volunteer opportunities to serve as RSVP “Bone Builders’ Lay Leaders, Tai Chi Instructors, and Walking Buddies’ mentors for individuals over 55. We also welcome older adults to read aloud to children, to help fight food insecurity, and to work with adult day services and other community services.
Where
Online or onsite at community stations.
There are RSVP volunteer stations throughout Washington, Hancock, Penobscot and Piscataquis counties
Volunteers with our program may be involved in their community or may be working with us at the Center on Aging developing supports for their local communities. Many lifelong communities in Maine are entirely volunteer run and all depend on local volunteers to improve the built, social, and service environments that make the community more age-inclusive.
Where
On campus and off campus in volunteers’ local communities
The Senior Companion Program recruits Maine volunteers, 55 and older, to help support Maine residents who are homebound across the 11 counties we serve. Our volunteers support connecting residents who are homebound to community resources, help to maintain a safe level of independence, reduce feelings of isolation, and help with transportation to community services.
Maine Extension Homemaker clubs engage in volunteerism at community, county, and state levels. Many involve donation of time (food pantries, or libraries), some involve the donation of goods (homemade baked goods, sewn items, knitted/crocheted items, etc.).
We welcome all volunteers to help us with our events, to help keep our library organized, and to help create information for digitization. We currently have a NEH grant to digitize Franco American items and could use help transcribing correspondences.
We welcome volunteers to help support and organize our Maine History and Government collections. Volunteers can help file, digitize books and manuscripts, organize shelves, and transcribe audio tapes and manuscripts. We also have opportunities to help with a moving project and genealogy requests.
On Maine History Day, volunteers can help support the Lead Archivist to answer children’s questions and help with the event.
Older adults can submit content to the Spire Journal and/or get involved as journal editors. Spire is at its heart an interdisciplinary and community-engaged resource, so we encourage submissions on topics regarding the environment from any people of any field or background. Submitted works may take a number of forms.
